


love tint

by 180714jaehyun



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, M/M, Skinship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 13:38:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15730503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/180714jaehyun/pseuds/180714jaehyun
Summary: Mark is Donghyuck's boyfriend. Mark just doesn't know it yet.





	love tint

**Author's Note:**

> i love impulsively posting poorly-planned one shots
> 
> inspired by [this](https://twitter.com/nayutle/status/1030417530224107525) clip of mark pushing donghyuck away when hyuck just wants to hold hands :(
> 
> title is from the song by hyeongseop x euiwoong

Moving into college is a blur for Mark. He meets so many new people in such a short span of time that he feels exhausted and overwhelmed. He can barely even remember his own roommate’s name. Hyunjae? Jaeyoung? Jaehyun? Mark was never that great at matching names with faces.

But there’s one person that Mark can never forget because of the way that he manages to crawl under Mark’s skin.

Donghyuck.

It starts one evening in the lounge. Their first community meeting, to be exact. Mark wanders into the lounge kind of late, meaning most of the seats are already filled and everyone lays their eyes on him when he awkwardly pries the door open.

Mark takes a seat on the couch in the middle of the room since there’s nowhere else to sit. Their resident assistant goes on for a few more minutes, outlining basic rules and goals for the year before ending his speech with a proud, “Time for an ice breaker!” that’s greeted with a chorus of groans from the residents.

It’s one of those awful ice breakers where you have to introduce yourself to the person sitting next to you and then your new pal later introduces you to the rest of the group. Mark hates it. Fortunately, since no one’s sitting next to him, Mark thinks he can get away with not talking to anyone and just being able to introduce himself later. So he sits there for a few minutes while everyone else chats, eyes glued to his phone screen.

But suddenly he feels the couch cushion dip beneath him and an enthusiastic “Hey there!” is being thrown his way. “I’m Donghyuck!”

Mark locks his phone, not wanting to appear rude. He glances over at Donghyuck, who’s flashing a blinding smile his way.

“Uh, hey. I’m Mark.”

Donghyuck cheerfully holds out a hand to shake.

Thus ensues a few minutes of awkward and stilted conversation in which Mark pretends to be interested in Donghyuck’s life and vice versa. (Except Donghyuck appears genuinely interested.)

The resident assistant claps a few times to regather everyone’s attention. Then they start going around the room; everyone says their name, the name of the person sitting next to them, and then a fact about the new person they had just met. It’s all very mundane, in Mark’s opinion.

Everything’s going smoothly until it reaches Donghyuck.

“My name’s Donghyuck. This is Mark.” Donghyuck makes a gesture over to Mark, then clears his throat before loudly boasting, “Fun fact about Mark is that he’s my boyfriend!”

Mark’s jaw falls open as the room fills with soft and gullible “aw”s. Someone asks them how long they’ve been dating and Donghyuck makes up some bullshit answer about being high school sweethearts.

Mark shakes his head hurriedly. “That’s— that’s not true! I’ve never even met this guy before.”

Donghyuck pouts and reaches over to nudge Mark playfully in the ribs. “Cut it out, sweetie.” Everyone laughs and someone mutters something about them being cute.

And it all spirals downhill from there. Mark tries to avoid Donghyuck and Donghyuck continues to play up the dating idea despite Mark’s ceaseless protests.

Jaehyun repeatedly assures Mark that Donghyuck is just being playful and that it’s really just a harmless joke, but it drives Mark insane. To Mark’s disappointment, some other residents start joining in on it too. Doyoung always asks Mark how his boyfriend is doing when Donghyuck’s not around. When Mark’s telling his friends about a girl he has a crush on in one of his classes, Renjun and Jeno reprimand him for cheating on Donghyuck.

“You can’t cheat on someone you’re not dating!” Mark counters.

Jeno tilts his head. “But… you _are_ dating Donghyuck,” he challenges.

Mark groans in frustration.

Sometimes Mark will just be sitting in the study lounge, focused on his studies, and Donghyuck will appear out of nowhere, immediately copping the seat _right_ next to Mark and greeting him with his current favorite corny pet name.

“I barely know you,” Mark bluntly tells him one time, a couple of weeks after their first meeting, and a few seconds after Donghyuck’s just finished saying, “Hey there, sugarplum.”

Donghyuck just smiles and leans his head on Mark’s shoulder. “You’re so funny, honey.” Then Donghyuck giggles. “Hey, that rhymed!”

Mark thinks the worst part of this ongoing joke is that Donghyuck actually _rejects_ people who are really interested in him just so he can say that he’s taken by Mark. Which isn’t true at all. It makes Mark feel guilty, like he’s shattering Donghyuck’s potential future relationships just because of this running joke.

Naturally, Mark ends up learning quite a bit about Donghyuck. They’re both biology majors and they happen to be neighbors with similar music tastes. Plus, Donghyuck’s pretty funny, and sometimes Mark finds it kind of endearing. Donghyuck knows how to lighten up any social situation, and they become friends as a result of that. But Mark’s very hesitant to admit that he’s pursuing any type of positive relationship with Donghyuck because Donghyuck persistently insists that they’re more than friends when other people are talking to them.

Donghyuck’s also very much into skinship. Sometimes it’s as subtle as just sitting next to Mark at community meetings or hugging him when he sees him around campus. Other times, Donghyuck lets his hand linger on Mark’s thigh when they’re sitting next to each other, or he tries to lace their fingers together. When it first started happening, Mark just prodded him away lightly and laughed it off. Now, Mark is merciless and he pushes Donghyuck away whenever Donghyuck tries to touch him in the slightest, even if it’s just their knees accidentally knocking together. Every time Mark shoves him away, Donghyuck flops away dramatically like Mark has just thrown him across the room. Then he lets out a disappointed, “Babe!” and Yuta has to tell them to be quiet because he’s trying to read some boring manga.

Mark thinks about the skinship a lot when he’s alone. After hours of dwelling, Mark decides that he doesn’t really hate it; he just doesn’t know how to react to it. It’s weird, really, because he’s never had awkward reactions to skinship before it started happening with Donghyuck. Sometimes Mark wonders if he’s repressing some deeper feelings for Donghyuck. Then he reminds himself that girls are cute and Donghyuck’s just a friend.

One night, a large group is gathered in the lounge to watch a horror movie and Donghyuck tries to snuggle up with Mark on the couch.

“I’m scared, Marky-poo,” he whispers, trying to bury his face in Mark’s neck. Mark can see people staring at the two of them out of the corner of his eye and he can’t take it anymore.

Mark decides that he’s fed up and instead of telling Donghyuck to give him a break, he simply sighs and walks out of the room. He feels more curious eyes land on him as he gets up and leaves.

Donghyuck meets him out in the hallway a few seconds later, confused expression plastered on his face.

“This has to stop,” Mark says sternly before Donghyuck has the chance to ask any questions.

“You know it’s just for fun,” Donghyuck argues.

“Sometimes fun crosses a line,” Mark says, feeling very guilty when he sees the sadness on his friend’s face. “Friends don’t cuddle like that. Friends don’t call each other pet names. Friends don’t…” Mark squeezes his eyes shut, trying to find the right words. “They don’t introduce each other as _boyfriends_.”

Donghyuck is silent for a few beats. Then, “From a psychological standpoint,” he begins, “physical intimacy is good for the brain.” It’s an obvious effort to alleviate the tension, but Mark just scoffs.

“This has nothing to do with psychology! Why do you even introduce me as your boyfriend, anyway? We’re not dating, we’ve never dated, and we will never ever date.”

Mark regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. The sadness on Donghyuck’s face switches to resentment in the blink of an eye.

“Okay,” Donghyuck says softly. “Sorry. It won’t happen anymore.” Without waiting for Mark to say anything else, he turns away and walks back into the lounge.

Mark spends the rest of the week feeling like he’s kicked a puppy. Donghyuck entirely cuts off communications with him. When they see each other, Donghyuck stares past Mark like he doesn’t even know him. Mark thinks Donghyuck is being immature and selfish.

“Donghyuck’s being immature and selfish,” Mark tells Jaehyun one night while Jaehyun’s trying to memorize some vocab for a midterm but Mark is so caught up in his feelings that he has to let it out. “He’s been ignoring me for the past week just because I asked him to stop calling me his boyfriend.”

“Have you tried talking to him?” Jaehyun asks, mumbling a vocab word quietly to himself while he waits for Mark to respond.

“I— well. Not really. But he hasn’t tried talking to me, either. I don’t understand why he would be so bitter. I’m allowed to not want to hold his hand.”

“He’s probably hurt,” Jaehyun comments. He turns over the flashcard in his hand and then curses quietly out of frustration.

“Why would he be hurt? It’s not like we were actually dating. It was a fair request.”

“Sure,” Jaehyun agrees. “But what if he actually had a crush on you? Then it would sting.”

Mark laughs. Jaehyun doesn’t laugh.

“You’re serious,” Mark observes.

“Of course I am. Think about it. He’s acting like he was rejected. If he truly didn’t mind just being friends, he wouldn’t be upset. But he’s obviously sad about it, so. You know. He _likes_ you. This is basic math, really.”

“Well, I’m not a math major for a good reason,” Mark huffs. Then he sits in silence, staring at the wall for a minute, gears turning in his head.

“Everything okay?” Jaehyun asks.

“Am I gay, Jaehyun?” Mark questions.

Jaehyun blinks. “Are you?”

“I don’t know,” Mark says. Then he throws his pencil down on the floor with a loud smack and hurries out of the room. “Gonna go find out.” Jaehyun looks confused.

Mark walks over to the room next to his and knocks lightly on the door. It takes Donghyuck a minute to answer and he looks very bewildered when he sees Mark, his hair sticking up in odd directions and his eyes lidded half shut like he’s just awoken from a nap.

“If you have a crush on me, you’re legally obligated to tell me,” Mark says quickly.

“That’s definitely not true,” Donghyuck protests.

“The crush or the legal obligations?” Mark asks.

Donghyuck hesitates. “The… the legal obligations.”

Mark’s eyes bug wide open. “ _Hyuck_!” he cries out.

“And the crush too!” Donghyuck blurts out desperately. “Why would I have a crush on you? You stink and you’re bad at biology,” he states petulantly.

Mark groans. “You’re a really bad liar.”

“Am not!” Donghyuck continues to lie. “I’m being serious. I cheated off of your paper on the midterm and got an F. You’re terrible at biology.”

Mark cocks an eyebrow.

“It doesn’t matter if I have a crush on you, anyway,” Donghyuck says, slightly flustered and clearly burdened by embarrassment. “You would _never ever_ date me.”

“I didn’t mean it!” Mark counters. “See, this is why you need to tell me these things before I end up being an asshole.”

“You didn’t mean it?” Donghyuck asks. “You obviously meant it when you said that the cuddles needed to stop. Which was super annoying, by the way, because friends _can_ in fact cuddle platonically.”

“It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with my strong dislike towards PDA. I promise.”

Donghyuck hums, unconvinced. He then tries to shut his door, causing Mark to let out a loud squawk, reaching his arm in the gap between the door and the doorframe.

“You want me to amputate you with my door?” Donghyuck asks, opening his door wider again. “I’m not a doctor yet. Not sure if that’s a great idea.”

Impulsively, Mark leans forward and kisses Donghyuck on the mouth. Donghyuck squeaks in surprise. There’s some shouting from down the hall and Mark pulls away to see Renjun and Jeno squealing like hyenas with their phones held up in the air, obviously documenting the moment. Mark yells at them to go away and they dart off down the stairs as if their lives are in danger.

“WHATTHEFUCKWASTHAT,” Donghyuck rushes out with comically wide eyes when Mark directs his attention back to him.

“A kiss,” Mark says nonchalantly. “I’ve never kissed a guy before.”

A few beats of silence. “And?”

“And…” Mark pauses. “I think I liked it?”

Donghyuck squints, expression riddled with disbelief. “Okay. _Okay?_ And what happened to the Mark who launches me across the room whenever I try to even hold his hand?”

“He was a wimp,” Mark decides. “I think I like you, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck blinks once. Twice. Then three more times, really quickly. “I don’t understand.”

Mark groans. “I’m saying we can date if you want. You can continue telling everyone I’m your boyfriend and it can actually be real.”

“But you’re a loser. What makes you think I would want to date you?”

Mark’s mouth opens slightly in shock.

Donghyuck laughs loudly. “I’m just kidding! Ah, your reaction was priceless.”

“Wh—”

“Cutest boyfriend ever,” Donghyuck says, pulling Mark into his room for a tight hug. This time, Mark reciprocates the hug.

Donghyuck resumes telling everyone in earshot that Mark is his boyfriend and Mark finally stops disagreeing because there’s no reason to argue with the truth.

**Author's Note:**

> if u enjoyed this awful humor u can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/180714jaehyun)


End file.
